Knowing God

I am a firm believer that to approach the matter of God and spirituality and salvation as a child, as instructed, means to come with no expectations, no preconceptions, no background "knowledge”; to take Him at His word, to believe Him. So for a moment, let’s drop the notion that there are all these God rules and that everyone is saved, and even that salvation is a journey, and let’s approach ‘knowing God’ with a blank page. Let’s think of the state of one who does know God.

I would think that someone who is fairly close with God has about as much irrational fear as a lion (and by that I mean little to none). They know they’re safe, they know the power of the one who loves them, and they know they will never die even if their body does. Someone who knows God would have no worry of any kind. Without the barrier of a mind with a questionable history, the one who knows God would be able to hear The Voice so clearly, so I imagine they’d be full of wisdom and may even have special insights (ooo, the gifts, watch out!). The one who knows God would be the most humble person you have ever met, having been given so much grace. The one who knows God would love others unconditionally and would withhold judgment. This person would seem like God in a body, well heck, like Jesus. Everything Jesus is, that’s what the one who knows God would look like. In fact, the whole goal of Christianity is to “be like Jesus”, or in some circles to “be Jesus”. There are so many claiming they know God – Christian or otherwise – but there should definitely be some of this fruit in the ones who actually do. Good trees bear good fruit.

The eternal reward is for those who know Him, or rather, for those whom He knows (Matthew 7:23).

We have all heard the age-old defense of relationship-religion that you can know everything about someone - their favourite colour, their date and place of birth, their family tree, their pet’s name, their complete history even down to the minute and second - and not know them. This can be likened to an obsessive Justin Timberlake fan who knows more about Justin than Justin does; but she can convince no one that she actually knows him (lame example I know!).

But let’s flip that argument on its head, since Jesus will say ‘I never knew you’ rather than ‘you never knew me’. Have you ever considered this? He who knows our intimate details, more intimate details than we do (He was more present at our births than we were), even counting the number of hairs on our head, doesn’t know us. He doesn’t know us, and it must drive Him to absolute extremes. To think of it this way is something that has helped me see what this is all really about. He wants to know me; He died to.

If you found an old and broken machine, and having no idea what it was, flipped on its switch to find it not working, I’d think that to go about fixing it, you’d first have to figure out what it does, what its intention is, the cause for its design. Our goal for this project then would be to have the machine working as it was meant to work, doing what it was intended to do. A project without a goal is destined for failure, yet because we have put the goal of salvation behind us as something achieved with that whispered prayer, we don’t even begin the real project.

And what is this intention for us broken machines? What is our purpose? I’d like to suggest our purpose is to know Him and to be known by Him – nothing more, nothing less. You have to go to the beginning to find this. Why were we put here? It’s clear to me that because the person of the Creator IS love, and there is no love without an object of love (a recipient), we were created to receive His love. It’s all I’ve ever been able to come up with. It’s the only thing that makes any sense.

And how fitting then, that Jesus – the person of God, and the repairman of this broken machine – comes and says that salvation is being known by Him. How perfect. How utterly perfect!

So let’s re-insert our grid for understanding, our preconceptions (maybe a little changed?), and the journey of salvation (Phil 2:12), and let’s get to it. Let’s find Him and know Him. It’s the only way.